Pierce may say a lot of dumb things but I think he probably means well by it. He's (sort of) right about this anyway.

Q.With Super Bowl week in full swing,
New Orleans seems to be on fire right now. As someone from here who
cares deeply about the city, what are your feelings about it all?

A.It’s
great, man. It’s a milestone. It’s a milestone of the recovery. Seven
years ago we weren’t sure if it would even be a city. At all. So at this
point to be able to host one of the biggest sporting events, one of the
biggest events, period, is a real milestone. It lets people know that
we’re back on our feet, that the recovery is going well, but we’ve got
to make sure it doesn’t become a tale of two cities, that just only
downtown is working, because a lot of neighborhoods still need time to
recover.

Of course, he's probably a bit late with that sentiment. There are undoubtedly chunks of money being thrown around town this weekend. It isn't evident, though, that our political leadership is interested in seeing that money benefits more than just a few of us.